The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known as Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Football Championship, which is held every four years and organised by UEFA, association football's governing body in Europe.[1]

The finals of Euro 2000 were co-hosted (the first time this happened) by Belgium and the Netherlands, between 10 June and 2 July 2000. Spain and Austria also bid to host the event.[2] The final tournament was contested by 16 nations. With the exception of the national teams of the hosts, Belgium and the Netherlands, the finalists had to go through a qualifying round to reach the final stage. France won the tournament, by defeating Italy 2–1 in the final, via a golden goal.[3]

One of the biggest surprises of the tournament was Portugal, winning Group A with three wins, including a 3–0 win against Germany, with Sérgio Conceição scoring a hat-trick,[4] and a 3–2 win over England, in which they came back from 2–0 down.[5] Romania was the other qualifier from the group, beating England with a late penalty in their last group game.[6]

Belgium had a surprise exit in the group stage, winning the tournament's first game against Sweden,[7] but losing to Turkey and Italy.[8][9] They finished third in Group B, behind Italy and Turkey. The other co-host and favourite, the Netherlands, progressed as expected from Group D, along with World Cup winners France. The Netherlands won the group, by beating France in their last group match.[10] Also in Group D, Denmark's three losses with eight goals conceded and none scored set a new record for the worse team performance in the group stages of a Euros. Group C was memorable for the match between Yugoslavia and Spain. Spain needed a win to ensure progression, but found themselves trailing 3–2, after Slobodan Komljenović scored in the 75th minute. The Spanish side rescued their tournament by scoring twice in injury time to record a 4–3 victory.[11] Yugoslavia managed to go through as well, despite losing because Norway and Slovenia played to a draw.[12]

France and Italy before the final on 2 July

Italy and Portugal maintained their perfect records in the quarter-finals, beating Romania and Turkey, respectively, and the Netherlands started a goal-avalanche against Yugoslavia, winning 6–1. Spain fell 2–1 to France; Raul missed a late penalty that ended Spanish hopes.

Italy eliminated the Netherlands in the semi-finals, despite going down to ten men and facing two penalty kicks. Italian goalkeeper Francesco Toldo, who had been drafted into the starting XI as Gianluigi Buffon missed the tournament through injury, made two saves in the penalty shootout (in addition to his penalty save in normal time) to carry the Italians to the final.

In the other semi-final, Portugal lost in extra time to France after Zinedine Zidane converted a controversial penalty kick. Several Portuguese players challenged the awarding of the penalty for a handball and were given lengthy suspensions for shoving the referee.[13] France won the tournament, defeating Italy 2–1 in the final with a golden goal by David Trezeguet after equalising with a last-minute goal, and became the first team to win the European championship while being world champion.[14]

Qualification for the tournament took place throughout 1998 and 1999. Forty-nine teams were divided into nine groups and each played the others in their group, on a home-and-away basis. The winner of each group and the best runner-up qualified automatically for the final tournament. The eight other runners-up played an additional set of play-off matches to determine the last four qualifiers. Belgium and the Netherlands automatically qualified for the tournament as co-hosts.

On 15 February 2000, UEFA appointed 12 referees, 16 assistant referees and four fourth officials for the competition, including a referee and an assistant referee from the Confederation of African Football.[22] The event saw assistant referees being allowed to intervene an ongoing game, in particular to help the match official apply the 10-metre rule when deciding free-kicks – as well as warn the referee instantly if he had booked or ejected the wrong player, something that was not possible in previous tournaments.[23] Also, fourth officials were given a larger role in assisting to take command of the match if any decisions are gone unnoticed by the referee or an assistant referee.[23]

The official mascot for the tournament was Benelucky[31] (a pun on Benelux), named a lion-devil with its hair colour being a combination of the flag colours of both host nations. The lion is the national football emblem of the Netherlands and a devil is the emblem of Belgium (the team being nicknamed "the Red Devils").[32]

UEFA distinguishes between global sponsors and national sponsors. Global Euro sponsors can come from any country and have exclusive worldwide sponsorship rights for a UEFA Euro championship. National (event) sponsors come from a host country and only have sponsorship rights within that country.[33]